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According to data provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have died while in custody beginning in October 2023. A human rights group operating from Israel has stated that the true toll is almost certainly significantly larger, due to many of missing people in Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report documented casualties caused by assault, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Researchers utilized freedom of information requests, forensic reports, and interviews with attorneys, activists, family members, and observers.

Government bodies disclosed detailed statistics only for the initial 240 days of the hostilities. During this time, official figures reveal an historically high casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging one death once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Researchers identified another 35 casualties in custody following these periods and verified them with Israeli authorities.

Although the overall count of fatalities charted being substantially larger than previous assessments, it almost certainly omits the entire scope of Palestinian casualties, per the head of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are offering documentation for a larger total of fatalities than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he stated. “We are certain that there are even now detainees who lost their lives in custody that we have not identified.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Confidential government records shows that the vast majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who died in prison were civilians, per a parallel inquiry.

By May of 2024, a defense forces registry monitoring all militants in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 named individuals, listed just 21 casualties in custody. By that date, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had perished in jail.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, mistreatment, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine has become routine across Israel’s detention facilities over 24 months of war. High-ranking authorities have publicly referenced inadequate food and an subterranean prison holding Palestinian individuals who are denied sunlight.

Present and past inmates and informants from the armed services have collectively claimed widespread breaches of international law.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The systematic abuse occurred alongside a troubling surge in deaths registered across a minimum of 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years preceding the conflict, there were on average a couple casualties a year.

“This is not only a single occurrence here and there. It is widespread and it will continue,” a representative said, in part due to the fact there is a environment of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing detainees.

Only a single instance of assaulting detainees has come to trial, with the service member sentenced to half a year. An effort to try other suspects over a severe beating involving sexual violence led to public rallies and the arrest of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the accused individuals now demanding that indictments against them be withdrawn.

Absence of Consequences

“Despite this significant total of casualties, over two years not a single person has faced arrest,” the official noted. “There are no prosecutions over any killing.

“While these practices remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in detention is at peril, including the healthy ones, including the young ones who have no medical issues.”

High-Profile Cases

Some deaths in custody have been widely reported, for instance a middle-aged medical chief who died in detention after four months in detention.

An inmate incarcerated with the deceased testified that he was led to the courtyard by guards shortly before his demise, visibly injured and unclothed from the hips downward. His corpse remains unreleased to Gaza.

Additional detainees who died in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. The prison service and military gave researchers with the number of fatalities in detention, and limited further data such as the facility where they lost their lives, but not the prisoners’ names.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, mostly individuals from Gaza, investigators were unable to connect the limited information given by government bodies to a death documented by advocacy bodies, either through accounts from released detainees or coverage in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives may not know about their family members’ fatalities as well, as Israel has created obstacles to monitor Palestinians it is holding. During 210 days at the outset of the conflict, the defense forces declined to supply essential data about the condition of numerous of people confined in Gaza, effectively carrying out a approach of involuntary missing persons, according to the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

Starting in May 2024, officials have established an email address for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a partial and limited enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on